


Accomplish

by Renaisty



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: (i mean... he's dead), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Episode: s02e18 Versus Zoom, Gen, What-If, minor westallen, technically he's there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-02 02:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11499918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renaisty/pseuds/Renaisty
Summary: Zoom kills Barry after taking his speed.They're on their own.





	Accomplish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trufflemores](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trufflemores/gifts).



> So. This idea haunted me for weeks before I wrote it out, a little while ago. I was curious, mostly. To see what would've happened had Zoom killed Barry then, and how things would've progressed. I hope I did okay, but even so, I did have fun writing this, despite the subject, so I count it as a win. Enjoy, and tell me what you thought!
> 
> Dedicated to trufflemores, for being amazing. Her fics and metas truly have made me love this show even more, and given me inspiration that I never would've had.

Zoom does nothing to them, just turns around, speeding away, and Joe finds Barry's body in the middle of his living room.

He doesn't think he's ever moved that fast, hoping against hope that he's still alive, that those deadly marks around his neck will fade away.

But they won't. Barry's skin is cold to the touch, ashen and devoid of that electricity that seemed to seep off it since the lightning. His clothes, civilian clothes, have not a drop of blood, but he's still, so still, in a way he's never been.

Wally's still by the door, in shock from everything that happened with Zoom, not knowing how or if he should (can) help. He doesn't understand, Zoom already had him, why would he kill Barry?

Joe doesn't want to lie. He really doesn't. But Barry just gave up his speed for Wally, and if Wally learns that… He can't see straight, his eyesight fogged over with tears, and his brain had screeched to an abrupt halt the moment he opened the door, but he has to think. He has to _think_ , and he has to protect Wally.

He really doesn't want to lie. But he can't put that burden on his son. Not after everything he's just been through.

'We helped the Flash. Zoom wanted revenge.'

It takes him a few tries to get the words out, to get them sounding right. All he can think about is late nights and science books and nightmares, and the piece of his heart that was _Barry_ shattering inside his chest, cutting him up from the inside out.

Wally steps outside to call Iris, and Joe hurts for her. In a moment of irrationality, he thinks that if he just hugs his son a little tighter, if he just shows him that he _can_ protect him from the monsters, he'll come back. That he'll smile and tell him not to worry, that he heals fast.

He doesn't.

That's when _it_ appears.

It's a nightmare. It looks like the Flash, if the Flash had been brutally murdered and left to rot for years. Its suit, or what remains of it, is a dusty black that blends in with the shadows of the room.

When the black Flash moves, it heads for Barry. Joe wants to scream at it, to shoot it, to do something. 'You're not coming closer! You're not getting my son!' But the words don't come. He can't move, he doesn't even know if he's breathing.

The figure crouches down, noiselessly, and Joe can't do anything when it reaches out and, almost gently, takes Barry's body from his unfeeling arms. Joe panics, and he has one last moment to look at his son's face, thankfully peaceful in death, before the both of them disappear. Just like that, like they were never there.

He can move again, he knows when, too late, far too late, he pulls out his gun, nothing to point it at anymore.

Wally finds him like that, and Joe has nothing to tell him. Not where the body has gone.

'It took him. It just… took him.'

Not whether that was the real Barry or an illusion.

'It was him.'

But he could tell. Holding the child you raised in your arms, you can't mistake it.

A speedster's is an empty grave.

…

They can't report him dead. Not without a body. They also can't risk anyone knowing anything about the connection between Joe, STAR Labs and the Flash.

They settle for missing. In a few years, they will begin the process of declaring him legally dead. Have a funeral. (If they're alive.)

They have their own little funeral. It's more like a get-together, except for the somber mood. Joe is… managing. Iris is inconsolable. Henry is in pieces. Cisco is there only physically. Caitlin is closed off. Harry does not come, trying, with Jesse, to find a way to stop Zoom.

Wally doesn't want to go. He feels like an outsider. Everyone there knew Barry, loved him. They'd only barely met. But Joe and Iris cling to him, afraid they'll lose him too, and he can't not do this for them.

After, it's not easy to go back to STAR Labs. But Iris insists. They have got to do this. They can't lay down and expect to die. They can't let Zoom take their spirit from them.

And Wally wants to help. Wants to honour what the Flash did for him, to be something more than what he was. He's done a lot of things he's not proud of, and this gift, he has to cherish it, has to make it worth it.

In his dreams, his mother hugs him, tells him not to overdo it, to take care of himself because where will she be without him? She says she's proud of him, and she always will be, and he just wants, needs, to deserve the words.

He asks Joe about him, a few weeks after everything. If he could set up a meeting.

'I can't. He's laying low for now. Without his powers, he needs other ways to help the city.'

Somehow, he knows he'll never see a scarlet speedster tearing through the city again.

And he has to make up for that.

Turns out, Cisco can open portals to alternate Earths. Who knew.

But they're unlucky. They're always unlucky these days. They can't find anything to help. Not only that, but, searching for a Flash, they happen upon another particle accelerator explosion. This one hopefully without Eobard Thawne pulling the strings. They don't stay to find out, though.

They stop searching. They're on their own.

They do find Killer Frost. It's easy to get her to their side, after what Zoom did to her.

It's still not enough. It's never enough.

…

He can be a god. He knows it. He feels it. He dreams about it.

It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when. When will he wake up able to 'shatter an entire nervous system without breaking a sweat'? When will he reach that level?

When will he not be afraid to?

But Barry is dead. And Cisco is _angry_. He is angry, and hopeless, and grieving and he thinks that's how supervillains are born. That's how great mistakes are made.

Then one day, he can't take it anymore. The fear. The _terror_ of Zoom killing them all. He must look mad, but he tears through his stuff, throws down almost everything until he finds the one thing he's looking for.

That night, he learns how to twitch his fingers and destroy worlds.

Of course, he won't do it. He'll never do it. But he knows how.

They get an opportunity, just one, weeks later. It's more of a trap, really. They have him convinced that they'll try something to bring him down, and where he's left them alone before, now he attacks.

Killer Frost has Hunter trapped for a second, unable to move, with ice colder than anything has any right to be, because it just doesn't _get_ that cold. Joe and Harry are in the rafters, guns at the ready. Caitlin is their backup plan, with powers that just started manifesting. Iris, Jesse and Wally are back at the cortex, running the comms.

It's the moment of truth. He wants to say something, but he can't spare the breath. Raising his arm, he throws a single blast at the monster.

Zoom crumbles like a puppet with its strings cut, his connection to the Speed Force severed painfully.

He doesn't stay that way for long. Just when they try to contain him, the Time Wraiths come. Before their eyes, Hunter turns into even more of a monster and is carried back into the Speed Force.

Of course, he thinks, the Black Flash. It has a new host now, it seems.

Not many things get past Cisco these days.

Joe chokes back tears, and suddenly Cisco is alone. Or, not really alone. He's in a house, in a living room that he hasn't been in for months, only everything is bluer than he remembers. Joe is hugging Barry like it can breathe life back to his cold body.

The Black Flash takes back what belongs to the Speed Force.

Cisco has cried. Cisco has cried for many Barry Allens the last few weeks. Versions of Barry he didn't even know. Other speedsters, even. But somehow, he's never had that particular Vibe.

Somehow, it still hurts more than anything.

They celebrate, with shadows in their smiles. Cisco goes home, not to his apartment, but to his family, and hugs Dante until the older can't breathe. He won't let anyone be stolen from him again.

No one else dies.

Later, he watches lights dance between his fingertips, and he curses the price of power.

…

The price of power… What does Cisco know about the price of power?

(A lot, her mind supplies, but she brushes it off.)

She can't get warm. She can't hug or kiss her loved ones. She can't even hold a cup of coffee without it freezing and shattering in her hand.

She hopes that in time it'll get better. That she can learn to control it. That everything can go back to the way it was.

Only nothing can be back the way it was. Killer Frost may be a villain (or is it anti-hero now?) but she's right about one thing. She is not Caitlin Snow. Not anymore.

Caitlin Snow was closed off, but she could hug. She could kiss. She could hold her hands steady above an open would and seal it shut. She didn't need glasses so her frosty eyes wouldn't clue anyone in to her meta status. She didn't have platinum blonde hair that couldn't be dyed. Above all, Caitlin Snow was in control.

The person that she is right now, is none of these. Especially not in control. Everything is out of her control, including herself.

Caitlin Snow's friends did not just get choked to death in front of her. Her hands did not tremble in fear when her friends were irreparably broken. Her knees did not give out when she saw Wally and Jesse hurt by an accelerator explosion of another Earth. Her body didn't fall prey to the same event. Her tears did not freeze the ground where they fell when for a terrible, terrible moment, she was sure their youngest were dead. That she couldn't help them.

(Like she couldn't help Barry.)

To her credit, Killer Frost tries to help. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. After a while, she goes back to her earth, searching for what, Caitlin doesn't know. She wonders what's left for her but corpses.

It does get better. It does. It's not easy, nothing is ever easy for them, but she can function. She can _live_.

'Just make sure not to create a snowstorm in here, and we'll be good.'

Snowstorm, she thinks. Funny. Her last name being 'Snow'.

…Firestorm, she thinks, and smiles a frozen smile.

Snowstorm could work. Can't really be a hero with a name like Killer Frost, now can she?

…

Some days pass normally. Others crawl by, slow as molasses. The minutes stretch into hours, the seconds into eternity.

Her father isn't anxious to go back, and at the moment, neither is she. Her and Wally have been getting to know each other more, and it's good. Really good. After everything, she likes this, the normality. Just life, without any craziness involved.

That is, if you don't account for the craziness that is the Speed Force.

Unable to wait, she hunts through STAR Labs for Trajectory's suit, and it's easy, so easy to put it on and run, run like nothing can touch her, like nothing can stop her.

She's met three speedsters in her life, even if only one was not a bad guy. All three of them are dead. One by speedster, one by Speed, one by the Speed Force.

Well, there's also Jay Garrick. The real Jay Garrick, whom she actually spent more time with, in retrospect. The one who stayed, but only for a while, unable to wear a face they all knew so well, when their Earth's counterpart had left after the funeral, grieving for the loss of the last of his family.

In the short while she knew him, he taught her a lot of things. A lot of other things, she figures out on her own. Cisco helps too.

Sooner rather than later, their Earth needs a Flash. Needs a Harrison Wells. And Killer Frost can't stomach fighting for the side of angels alone, not for long anyway.

She doesn't want to leave. She's been building something here, even if it took a while.

But at night, when she twists and turns and worries that she'll burn through the covers, it calls to her. Earth 2 (or, let's face it, Earth 1) calls for her to go back, even for a minute, even for a day.

She and her father visit the graveyard for the first, and maybe last time. Maybe they'll come to the actual funeral in a few years. There are heartfelt goodbyes with the team, with the couple of friends she's made, with Wally, and then suddenly there's nothing holding her back.

Suddenly, her world is safe, and it's all hers to enjoy and to thrive in.

They promise to visit, and the breach closes behind them.

…

The articles pour out like rivers. Stories about the new heroes, the ones who defeated the speedster Zoom, the ones who are keeping the city safe from metahumans.

Stories about people are harder. She has no insider info, no conviction apart from her own gut instinct. But Iris likes the challenge. She likes seeing the look on her co-workers', her friends', her family's faces when they read a particularly well-written line. She likes seeing _those_ articles make the front page more.

Of course, the city needs hope. At the same time, the city needs truth. That's her mission. Her mission as a journalist is to tell the truth, to make sure everyone knows it.

Between making plans and coordinating the team at STAR Labs, her investigations, and the actual writing, she doesn't have a lot of time. But still. She has written 29 titles and 13 articles about it. They all sit in her laptop's recycle bin, or printed out, in the actual recycle bin down the street. She doesn't have the heart to end it.

She can offer them hope; in Vibe, in Snowstorm, in Agent Light. She can't take it away, tell them their Flash is dead. Not yet. It's only been a few months.

It hits her, sometimes, how she's been living without her best friend for three months now. The void in her heart is like a black hole, trying to swallow up any happiness she can find. She doesn't let it, but it's hard.

It's hard to lose a person who has been there for you almost all your life. It's hard to lose your best friend. It's even harder to lose them before you can tell them how you feel.

God, she wants to have him in her arms. Wants to cup his face and kiss him like she's never wanted to with anyone. Wants to have more time, to tell him that she loves him. That she'll miss him. That she's so angry, but so proud, and that she now gets how hard it is sometimes, to be the leader. That she's doing her best, but she's not sure if that's good enough.

She thinks that's what he was doing too, just trying his best and hoping.

Linda came back, with a renewed determination to help the city and much better control of the fake Dr. Light gear. They have become much closer during these months, and at this point, Iris can say that the other woman is her best friend.

Her other best friend. The one who's not dead.

The morning Wally wakes up with superspeed, she cries. Her father tries to keep a level head, he really does, but it's not easy. He's suddenly afraid, so afraid of what will happen to his remaining children.

That's when Wally realizes what they've been keeping from him all this time. His earlier ecstatic glee disappears like a snuffed-out candle. He takes off at the speed of sound three seconds later, and is gone for the whole morning.

Once they both can think more clearly, it's not fear that they feel. It's wonder. Another speedster in the family. A Flash in the making. _If_ he wants the codename, of course.

'Time wants to happen,' Cisco repeats solemnly, but with a glint in his eyes.

She's not bitter. She's not.

She is.

The Iris West of Earth 5, as they dubbed it in their search, was in a dark place, fighting against an evil version of herself. She couldn't help them. The Flash of Earth 5 was busy trying to prevent herself from killing her own loved ones, and Iris shouldn't be jealous of her.

It just seems like _everyone_ else is out there, fighting. First Cisco, then Caitlin, then Jesse, then Linda and now Wally. She doesn't want to be the one left behind. The one left handling the comms when everyone else is risking their lives.

She _is_ bitter. Just a bit.

(And if all of them go out in a giant blaze of glory, she and her dad are going to be alone again, the family they'd made disappearing like everything else good did. Like Barry did.)

Of course, not all of them can be out at once. She coordinates the teams, they weight the balance any given patrol needs, and they make sure someone is always available for backup.

She starts boxing again, and puts herself in the 'backup' roster, praying that she wouldn't be needed, but knowing that however strong they all are, no one is invincible.

Wally has a lot to learn, but they all help. He's a natural, astounding them every day. And whatever they don't know, Cisco can find out. He's got a whole multiverse where Barry is alive to seek guidance from.

Again, she is (not) bitter.

But in the end, only she can do what they can't. Only she has no secret identity to conceal, only she can help Central City regain its hope, its light and its dreams. And if she still hasn't published a single word about the Flash's demise… there's still time.

As a journalist, her mission is to tell the truth. As part of the team protecting the city, her mission is to lie. And she can accomplish both of _those_ things perfectly.


End file.
